Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Matthew 10:17-31

There are a few buzz words in Christian churches that I hear especially when I’m traveling to other congregations on behalf of the Nebraska Synod. “Welcoming,” “hospitality,” and “generosity,” I think make the top of the list. I have really never been to a church that didn’t claim to do all of these things well, but when you experience it for yourself, you discover the truth about whether that congregation is actually welcoming, hospitable, and generous. Similarly, as we talk about generosity the next two weeks, I think all of us individually would like to think of ourselves as generous people. But especially when we’re confronted with words from Jesus like this, it is hard to say that we’re THAT generous. I can think of only a few people throughout HISTORY that have given up all but their basic necessities to serve Jesus. The first people that come to mind are St. Francis of Assisi and St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. And they’re both saints now…so it doesn’t seem like a very achievable goal for most of us. Thank God we’re not alone! When Jesus tells the disciples it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, they say, “Then who has any chance at all?” And Jesus goes on to reassure us, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it.” Or in the NRSV version we might be more familiar with, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
That being said, Jesus is asking us as disciples who want to follow him to reflect on our relationship with money. Generosity and sacrifice ARE qualities of a disciple. When I talk with couples in premarital counseling, we talk about our attitude toward money because financial problems is the number one stressor in a marriage. In our God-given personalities and how we were raised, we have different attitudes toward money. In general, there are those of us who are savers, those of us who are spenders, and those of us who are givers. You can probably guess your money personality just by thinking about what you would do if you happened to find $50 on the floor this morning. Would you spend it, save it, or give it? Of course, as the pastor I’m going to say you all should drop that right into the offering plate, but if we’re honest, a lot of us would either spend it or take it for our personal savings. I will confess to you all right now that I am a saver. I really don’t care a lot about stuff – when I do spend money, like a stereotypical millennial I like to spend it on experiences – maybe theater show or music concert that’s coming to town, on travel opportunities, or on a nice meal out at a new restaurant. I give to church right out of my paycheck electronically and to other causes I’m passionate about because it is not easy for me to give. Generosity does not come naturally to me. I would rather like to think about how much money is accumulating in my savings account and how I can make it go farther through investing. So, I have to push myself and practice some giving habits so I don’t forget or neglect to be generous. Generosity, at least for myself, and certainly for the rich man Jesus is talking to, takes work. It’s hard!
Certainly, you hear these words from Jesus differently depending on whether you are a saver, spender, or giver. Similarly, if you have a lot of money in the bank, you hear it differently than if you’re in debt and struggling to pay all of your bills. There is a psychological phenomenon we have in our culture where we all would prefer to say we’re in the middle class. People whose incomes are in the top 1% will say they are “upper middle class,” and note that they don’t have as nice a car (or as many cars or garages) as their neighbor. Similarly, people who qualify for public assistance are reluctant to say that they are poor, rather, they are “lower middle class.” And the truth is, most of us in this country by the world’s standards are wealthy, even if we struggle to pay the bills. I have had the opportunity to stay in a two-room home with a dirt floor in Nicaragua for a family of nine people where I slept in one of two beds. And I realized that I had more possessions in the hiking backpack I was carrying with me for the two weeks than the family owned. That was generosity. That was hospitality. That was true welcome, that I was the one on the receiving end, when I arguably had more to give. And that family would not have been nearly as phased as I or the rich man if Jesus told them to give all their possessions to the poor.
Whether we’re rich or poor, whether we’re givers, spenders or savers, as Christians we remember that everything we have is not really ours, but a gift from God. Jesus confronts us with the truth that those who have more are not necessarily more blessed by God. In fact, the more we have, the more difficult it is for us to put our love for God and our neighbor above other things. The more stuff we have, the more power we have, the more status we have, the harder it is to let go of those things, just like that rich man experienced in being unable to follow Jesus.
Jesus turns the rich man’s question from what we have to do to inherit eternal life to how we can receive the gift of eternal life that God already wants to give us. You can’t earn a gift. And even if we tried, Jesus points out, we couldn’t do it. God doesn’t require anything of us except for us to let God show us the way rather than for us to bargain, use our material wealth or social status and compete with one another to somehow earn God’s favor and salvation. It’s not about money, or social status, or even how great we are at giving or not giving. It’s not about what we do at all – it’s about what God has already done for us. The good news is that the Christian faith isn’t about us earning God’s love through money, doing more, trying to be a better person, and so on.
Jesus reminds us that no one is good, only God. We know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t always do it. That’s human nature. The hardest thing to do and also the easiest thing is to let go of all the ways we want to control God and instead simply receive what God has given us – life with him, eternally. It’s in the letting go and letting God that we are able to receive the gift that was already there for us – eternal life, a family beyond our blood and flesh relatives (family of the body of Christ, as Jesus says, multiplied many times. Rather than holding onto a lot of things tightly, lean into God to help you let go. We can only be generous when we first allow God to be generous with us, when we reflect on all that we’ve received from God. It’s amazing, really. And then, you can’t help but want to share God’s generosity with more and more people. Amen.